by Carly Keene
“Stay,” she says. “I have to leave at 7:30, but stay a little longer if you can.”
“I’ll stay.” And I fall asleep with her in my arms.
SIX
Ainsley
I’ve never felt so satisfied in my life. I’ve barely gotten any sleep, but I am refreshed in a totally different way as I take the world’s fastest shower and dress hurriedly, watching Seanan Kelly, Best Lay Ever, sleeping in my bed. He’s got beard stubble and bedhead, and he’s snoring a little bit, but he is so fucking gorgeous, and so fucking, well, good at fucking, that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody more appealing.
I can’t wait to see him later.
I grab a piece of cheese and a clementine for breakfast, and then I’m gone, off to teach more ungrateful undergraduates about marketing and work more on my research paper for my own class. I leave Seanan a note on the inside of the door, saying thanks for everything and here’s my number.
By lunch, I’m starving, and my suddenly exercised ladyparts are ultra sensitive. I keep having to shift my weight on my chair, and every time I do, I think of him, making me come with his tongue and his fingers and his beautiful thick cock. I shiver a little.
My phone pings with a message, so I pick it up and read it while I’m chomping a BLT. It’s a number I don’t know, and my heart leaps.
Lass, this is Seanan. I hope you’re having a good day.
I type back, silently screaming in excitement: Excellent, thank you very much.
Seanan: Not suffering too much from lack of sleep?
Me, amazed at my own boldness: I seem to be suffering from lack of you, actually.
There’s a pause long enough to make me concerned I’ve said too much, and then another text comes in.
Seanan: Damn, woman. Do you get breaks? Will we get you fired if I come into your office and have you on the desk? Only I’m definitely suffering from lack of you as well.
I have to take a moment to breathe and shift on the chair. My panties are damp already, after three minutes of texts.
I don’t have an office. My study carrel is in the library and there are usually 8 million annoying undergrads milling around. So can I have a raincheck?
Seanan: a raincheck on the desk shenanigans?
Me: on any shenanigans. Anytime. Sooner the better tho.
Seanan: !!! Mac is already giving me shite over texting you. Just think how bad it’s going to be when you come in this evening and I kiss you senseless.
I laugh out loud. Let’s not get arrested.
Seanan: I live upstairs from the pub. Can you stay?
I mentally start packing an overnight bag. I take thirty seconds and wonder if it’s too soon for this. Do I really know him? Is he really all I think he is?
Seanan: I do have to close the bar. No, wait, I’ll beg the new bartender to help Mac, and I’ll shove off at midnight.
Seanan: This ought to be good, she hates him.
Me: She hates him?
Seanan: He made a public move on her and she cut him off at the legs. Strong girl. I like her.
Seanan: Plus she came up with this terrific new cocktail we’re debuting on St. Paddy’s Day.
Seanan: how soon can you be here tonight? Soon son
Seanan: I mean soon!
This slew of excited texts makes me laugh, and also makes me supremely horny. I’m already planning lace panties. There’s a plum-colored pair that makes my ass look good.
Me: Around 6, if I can get food there.
Seanan: Oh, I’ve got things to feed you . . .
Me: hate to say it but I have to go now. Some of us are working at noon.
Seanan: some of us are working at midnight. Later, beautiful lass.
I do another silent scream of excitement in my chair, and then stop because people are staring. Besides, if I wiggle any more in this chair, I’m going to give myself an orgasm, courtesy of Seanan via text.
That might not be too bad, actually, but just then I realize I have just ten minutes to get to my graduate class, and I haven’t even finished my sandwich.
At 6:22 p.m., I’m going into Kelly’s Pub with a big tote purse that has all my stuff in it for tomorrow, my stomach full of happy butterflies. Mac’s at the bar and gives me a big grin, pointing to an empty seat.
I sit in it. “Hi, Mac.”
“Hello yourself,” he says, grinning. “My big brother’s been ridiculously happy all day, and I think we have you to thank for that.”
I feel my cheeks go hot, and I know I’m blushing, but I can’t help grinning back.
“That’s a big bag,” Mac observes.
“I’ve been invited to stay,” I say, blushing harder. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” He hands me a menu. “We’ll get to know each other better.”
“Where is he?”
Mac tilts his head toward the area behind the bar. “Office. On the phone with a supplier. He’ll be with you soon, and then god knows we won’t get a lick of work out of him all night.” I blink, and Mac laughs out loud. “I’m joking a bit, lass. Sure and he’s distracted, but he’s a good worker. Cares a lot about the pub.”
“I gather you two pretty much grew up here.” I pick up the menu.
“Oh aye. Seanan got to pick the music,” Mac says. “Can I be gettin’ ye a Guinness or anything?”
I make a face. “I don’t really like beer.”
He makes a horrified one back. “Not like Guinness? I’m shocked, lass. Shocked.” Then he laughs. “No, Guinness is an acquired taste. What d’ye want, then?”
I hand the menu back. “Cheddar burger and a root beer.”
“Coming up.” He looks over his shoulder. “Ah, here comes the lad now.”
I look up, and there’s my Seanan. He lifts the piece of the bar that folds up and comes through, and then he pulls me into his arms and kisses me. Very thoroughly.
When he finally stops, there’s hooting from people I assume to be regulars. “Don’t mind them,” he says to me. “God, I’ve missed you. All day.”
“Me too.”
“You look beautiful. I hate to tell you this,” he says, “but I have to go struggle with the books for a bit. I’ll be in and out, but I didn’t finish earlier, and I have responsibilities at the bar when it gets crowded.”
“It’s okay,” I urge. “Can I just park here at the bar, or should I find a table?”
“Right there,” he insists, and then smiles. My heart leaps, and my girly bits, swaddled in increasingly damp plum lace, get wetter in anticipation.
I finish my burger. I chat a little bit with Mac, and sometimes with the new bartender girl, whose name is Jennifer. She’s tall, with short dark hair that frames her face like Halle Berry’s, and she’s both really pretty and really tough-looking. If Mac hit on her in public, I’m not surprised she shut him down.
Seanan comes out of the back a couple of times, but mostly he’s in the office. I sigh, and stifle a yawn or two. I can wait until midnight.
I get Jennifer to make me the cocktail Seanan was telling me about. She says it’s a Dublin Green Apple, and it’s made with sour apple schnapps, Irish whiskey, and white cranberry juice. Yummy. And it’s a striking apple-green color. I tell her it ought to do well on St. Patrick’s Day.
I get up to go to the ladies’ room. While I’m washing my hands and putting on a big of lip gloss, three slender blonde girls come in, talking a mile a minute.
“Seanan still looks really good,” one of them says, tossing her hair and fishing through her purse. “He was a total goof-off at college, but it seems he’s settled down enough to run this place now.”
“Didn’t you date him for a while?” one of the other girls asks, while touching up her own makeup.
“Mm-hm,” First Blonde says. She fixes her hair and takes a selfie with the third girl, both of them doing a duckface. “Giant cock. And he was such a fuck machine. He could go all night.” Then she laughs. “Especially if he was avoiding responsibility at the sa
me time.”
“Think he’s interested now?” Second Blonde persists. “He was smiling at you a lot.”
“He might be,” First Blonde says smugly. “I could use a good ride anyway. He loves cowgirl.”
I’ve been putting on pink lip gloss for a million years now. I have to stop, or they’ll figure out I’m listening. Right now my cheeks are as pink as the gloss, and in the mirror I look sick and pale except for the spots on my cheeks.
Fuck machine.
Giant cock.
Smiling at her a lot.
He loves cowgirl.
The words keep echoing in my head, even after the Three Skinny Blondes go out into the pub.
Fuck machine.
Go all night.
Avoiding responsibility.
He loves cowgirl.
I am a fucking idiot. I just met this guy, and instead of finding out what he’s really like, I just go ahead and fall right in love with him. I believe every word he says without waiting to find out whether he’s legit or not. I am so stupid about men.
I am so stupid.
Another group of women come in, and I dawdle at the mirror until they’re ready to leave. I leave the bathroom with them, carrying my big tote on my arm. I can always come get my jacket another time.
Funny how hard it is to walk two blocks with a broken heart.
SEVEN
Seanan
Ainsley’s gone.
Nobody saw her leave, and her jacket’s still over the back of the bar stool. But she’s gone.
She doesn’t respond to any of my sixteen panicked Where did you go? Are you okay? What’s wrong? Did something happen? Did you get kidnapped?, etc., texts and voicemail messages, and then finally there’s a brief message which feels like a slap.
I am fine. I will retrieve my jacket at a later date. Please do not contact me further.
I call and it goes straight to voicemail without ringing, so I know she’s blocked me.
What I don’t know is why.
By midnight, everybody is irritated with me, even Mac. “You must have done something,” he insists. “Because she was happy when she came in, and then this text looks like she hates you.”
Stung, I snap back with, “Speaking of hating you, Jennifer does.”
Mac looks surprised, and then hurt, and then he puts on this blank expression that says just how hurt he is. “Never mind Jen. What did you do to Ainsley? Because I have to say, I’m against whatever it is. I like her.”
“Maybe I didn’t talk to her enough. I was too busy with the damn books,” I say wretchedly. “Oh, god. Forget it. We’re about ten seconds from breaking out the fecking ice cream and talking about our feelings, and I don’t think we can come back from that.”
“Oh,” Jennifer says, working the cocktail shaker, “because not talking about your feelings is helping so much?”
Mac and I turn on her in the same instance. “Shut up!”
Mac adds, “If you don’t have anything helpful to add, then don’t add anything.”
Jennifer gives him a disdainful look. “Follow your own advice.” But five minutes later, as she’s pulling bottles of Belgian bock out of the ice, she says, “Any old girlfriends of yours here tonight? Anybody who might have said something rude to her?”
I blink. Because Jennifer’s right, a girl I dated a couple of times back in my frat-boy days was here earlier. I was glad to see Shoshana out for a drink with her friends. Not that I’d ever go out with her again, now that I know Ainsley exists. But I did talk to her. Briefly. “Maybe,” I say with caution. “Girl I used to date was here. It was never serious. Party dates.”
Jennifer raises her eyebrows at me, and I modify it. “Okay, so they were one-night stands. Drunken ones. I barely remember them.”
Her eyebrows are still up.
“Okay, so it’s possible she might have remembered the sex. Like out loud.”
Jennifer’s eyebrows stay up.
“I am a dumbass,” I say, with feeling, and everybody behind the bar nods.
“It’s midnight,” Jennifer finally says. “I’ll help close. You go.”
“What if she doesn’t answer?” I ask, desperate.
“You’ll think of something,” she says.
I take Ainsley’s jacket and I go out the door, thinking furiously. Lloyd Dobler and the boombox? I don’t think her neighbors would appreciate it.
Enough flowers to blanket her stoop? No florists are open until tomorrow.
Making those big “I LOVE YOU/ YOU’RE PERFECT/ PLEASE TAKE ME BACK” signs? Borderline creepy.
Begging?
Um, no.
And maybe I’m just wrong. Maybe I don’t know enough about her. Maybe I hurt her feelings sometime last night and she can’t bring herself to tell me, although I’d have thought that she could have just ignored my text this afternoon if she didn’t want to hear from me.
I don’t know. I’ve walked over to her apartment building. She’s in the front bedroom of an apartment over a used books store. The store closed hours ago, and all the lights are off upstairs.
No, I’m back to Lloyd and the love song. It’s all I’ve got.
And then I know. I scoop up a handful of gravels from the street, judge the traffic, and step backward to get the right angle.
The first gravel hits the wall beside her window. Second, third, and fourth ones hit the window just right, little pings and nothing that could break glass.
If she’s really pissed off, the next thing I’ll know will be a cop shining a flashlight into my eyes. Screw it, this is worth it.
She’s worth it.
It’s the eleventh gravel that does it. She comes to the window and looks out.
She’s been crying, I think, and that makes it easier to take a deep breath and start singing.
Come over the hills, my bonny Irish lass
Come over the hills to your darling
You choose the road, love, and I’ll make the vow
And I’ll be your true love forever
I repeat the verse. She doesn’t move. People walking by are staring at me, and I don’t care. A flicker of hope burns in my chest. She’s not calling the cops or telling me to go away.
I repeat the verse again, and this time she opens the window. She makes a frustrated sound and shakes her head. Then she says. “All right, then. Get your ass up here.”
Yes!
Love gives wings to my feet.
EIGHT
Ainsley
Seriously?
I mean, does he think he’s Lloyd Dobler or something?
But Seanan just keeps singing. He’s got a perfectly pleasant voice, though nothing that would win American Idol. But it’s the song that’s getting me. It’s “Red Is the Rose,” and he keeps singing the part about choosing the road and making the vow and being my true love forever, and finally I figure he’s at least earned the chance to explain to me, because if I was just a piece of ass to him, and he could get a piece of skinny blonde ass without even trying, why would he bother with making a fool of himself outside my window?
I tell him to come up.
I’m in my nightgown again, but this is a pretty white cotton one, the kind of romantic English-meadow flowing-skirt thing that heroines of historical romances wear to bed. I figured if I was going to feel like shit, at least I wasn’t doing to dress like it.
When I open the door, there he is, and his eyes are pink too, just at the edges. He opens his mouth, and then closes it, his eyes flashing all over me and pain in his face.
“Lloyd, I presume,” I say.
His face contracts a little, and then his chin goes up. “Well. It’s all I had.”
I fold my arms over my boobs, partly because I’m defensive and partly because he shouldn’t get to look at my boobs if I’m just another piece of ass. And partly because, just by virtue of standing in my doorway, my nipples have gotten hard.
“I don’t even know why you’re mad at me.”
“You don’t.�
��
“The only thing I can imagine is that this girl I dated a couple of times maybe said something to you. Maybe about the kind of person I used to be.”
Okay, so he’s hit it out of the gate.
“I’m not that chap anymore.”
But that’s exactly what I want to hear, so that’s why he’s saying it. Right?
“So what kind of ‘chap’ are you?” I ask, and I inwardly cringe at my tone of voice. It’s 100% bitch.
He looks down, then back up at me. If it’s an act, it’s very good. “I’m yours.”
I say nothing, because my eyes are stinging.
“All yours. All in. No shenanigans. No drunk frat boy screwing around. I’m yours, Ainsley.”
Well, shit.
I mean, that was a really good, satisfying mad I had going there, I tell myself. And then, looking at his hopeful face, I admit that it wasn’t satisfying at all. “Satisfying” was Seanan in my life, in my bed, in me. And I suddenly realize that I’m just scared of never having that again. Of not deserving it.
I do deserve it.
And, I think now, wouldn’t it be better to love him and maybe lose him than never have him?
I take a deep breath and let it out.
“And I’m yours.”
He doesn’t move for two seconds, and then all of a sudden his arms are around me. “You mean that?”
“I mean it.”
Then he kisses me. Long, slow, soft kisses that gradually turn into harder, fiercer ones. I hold him tighter. I can feel his cock a line of erect heat against my stomach. He picks me up and presses my back against the wall, and I lift my legs to clutch him around the waist. Our groins align, and I gasp at the sensation. He’s so hot through the thin cotton.
“This is in the way,” he growls, trying to pull the gown up between us. I reach down and tug, and it slides up to expose my bare pussy. He gets harder in his pants, and then my hands are frantic on the zipper, and after an excruciating moment of fumbling, he’s deep inside me, giving me firm strokes that feel hotter every time he moves. At this angle, he hits something really good inside, and I can’t help moaning.
